Bits: Travelex / Avios, 20% bonus on transfers to Etihad, £4 Manchester passport control fee

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• Daniel says:

  11 Oct11 October 03:36

  Basically….here at Manchester airport…we run this place so badly, despite you paying us already to get through the airport, even with our E-gates, that we want you to pay twice…

  I speak as a local…

  • Oh! Matron! says:

    11 Oct11 October 05:22

    Originally from one of the boroughs that owns Man Airport, and I’m embarrassed by Manchester. It’s one of the worst airports I’ve ever been to and even makes La Guardia look good.

    The only positive thing I can say is the Escape Lounge in T3, which looks directly onto the run way. Even the Virgin Lounge is an embarrassment.

    Oh, sorry, one more good thing: The Aero park is amazing. The tour of concorde is wonderful and the guides really know their stuff. My guide taught Aeroengineering at Salford Uni and explained why, even to this day, concord is still the only plane that has travelled supersonic across the atlantic WITHOUT afterburners 🙂

  • Anna says:

    11 Oct11 October 07:05

    + 1. Does this mean they are going to make it so arduous to get through passport control for free that people will start paying up in desperation? And what next? Pay for speedy bag drop? Speedy disembarkation?

  • Andrew says:

    11 Oct11 October 07:29

    Having a paid for fast track always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It creates an incentive for the airport to make the standard security as unpleasant as possible. An airport shouldn’t be rewarded for failing to provide what is a basic necessity.

• Alastair says:

  11 Oct11 October 04:57

  This has been done at Stansted (owned by Manchester Airport) for a while and generally works well. However, if they get to the occasional “holding people in the corridor from the Ryanair sattelite” tactic it won’t improve anything. Having said that, since I started using the fast track immigration (which is not reliant on E-gates) I have not had any delays.

  As Stansted seems to have changed its IATA code to QQQ (or at least that is what you do all the time) it does actually help…

• TripRep says:

  11 Oct11 October 05:55

  Immigration/Passport fastrack should be offered as standard to Business class travellers, airlines could include in the fee and promote it as an added benefit.

  Will definitely look out for it the next time returning to UK via MAN, any rumours of LHR/LGW offering it?

• Tim Millea says:

  11 Oct11 October 06:33

  I have to agree that Manchester Airport is the pits. It is the airport by which all other airports can be judged, in a negative way. It is my local airport. Every time I ‘pass’ through it manages to make itself worse than the previous horrendous time. On the last occasion, 27th September, main security of terminal 1 was closed and all passengers were required to go five flights of stairs down into the cellar to receive the ritual abuse and assault then five flights back-up to be harangued and assaulted through the newly-extended compulsory walk through duty-free. The previous, relative, short-cut I had learned had been closed with a new wall and lined with sales staff to catch people who knew the previous route. There is no easy way to the gates. You must pass through bars with seating and tables arranged to obstruct. And then at the very end, the actual gate requires going down and up two flights of stairs – as if nobody actually thought that people would be going to the airport to catch a plane.

  Manchester Airport is a disaster area.

  Passing through since 1972….

  Tim.

  • Tom says:

    11 Oct11 October 09:34

    Try having Leeds Bradford as your local airport….Manchester is like T5 when compared to our portkabin tosh!

• Cheshire Pete says:

  11 Oct11 October 06:44

  Yes Immigration at T3 has really deteriorated even with the introduction of 6 new e gates, which Probably replaced 12 staff, hence the wait is now worse than ever. However is this resourcing from UK Border not the airport itself? Conversely I’ve witnessed massive increase in egates at both LGW and LHR and there queues seem almost non existent now. Fortunately for me I generally clear immigration at LHR connecting to Domestic Manchester. An hour in the T5 lounge compensates for an hour I would have spent at MAN T3 immigration queue.

  • John says:

    11 Oct11 October 07:47

    1 UKBF agent is needed to operate up to 5 gates

    They can be much faster if people know how to use them

    last night at LHR got stuck behind 3 noobs who all failed to insert their passport correctly. Purple “helper” was about to close the lane saying it wasn’t working, I told him to let me try and got through in 0.5 seconds.

• Paul says:

  11 Oct11 October 07:01

  Is any other reader having trouble linking through to the special Travelex page to buy foreign currency and earn Avios?

  • Helenrf says:

    11 Oct11 October 07:22

    Yes I can’t click through to it

    • Roberto says:

      11 Oct11 October 07:29

      Rob your link https://headforpoints.com/hfp/travelex-avios-page/ is not forwarding…

• Zoe says:

  11 Oct11 October 07:03

  OT: my husband is currently stranded in Spain with 17 others as Ryanair cancelled their flight home last night due to the French ATC strike. I know that counts as extraordinary so no compensation but should Ryanair cover extra airport parking / food / accommodation?
  Yes I know they shouldn’t have picked Ryanair but he didn’t arrange the golf trip. I spent half an hour on Ryanair chat but only got ‘cut and paste’ answers saying send in receipts and see. Thanks in advance.

  • Anna says:

    11 Oct11 October 07:09

    I have a feeling they will just point toward their travel insurance, if they have it (a surprising amount of people don’t!)

    • Roberto says:

      11 Oct11 October 07:34

      Ryan air make more money cancelling flights in this situation rather than running them as they know that there is no EU compo to pay. Someone I know had their flight cancelled as they were checking in at Malaga yesterday, Tuesday 10th. Ryanair offered them to swap to their next available flight on Monday next week for free.

      • callum says:

        11 Oct11 October 09:31

        Using that logic Ryanair could just cancel every flight they operate and they’d be rolling in cash with the increased profit!

        Not only do Ryanair have to pay expenses, they still need to fly those people where they were going to go. I am pretty confident in being able to say that ATC strikes causing Ryanair (or any airline) to cancel their flights do not result in them “making more money”.

      • Scott says:

        11 Oct11 October 14:43

        Do you know what the problem was at Malaga – a knock-on from French ATC strike?

    • the real harry1 says:

      11 Oct11 October 07:34

      @Zoe – yes, your husband is absolutely & fully entitled to food, drink (not alcohol) and accommodation until re-routed – this under EC261. Duty of care. Keep receipts.

      Parking would be seen as a consequential loss and airlines nearly always refuse to pay for these when first claimed. However, in the UK the CAA’s recent intervention with Ryanair clarified that airlines should look to re-imburse this kind of expense, I’ll see if I can dig out something. BA did pay up for consequential losses (in a few documented cases over on FT) caused by the IT glitch & cancellations earlier on this year – but only when threatened with legal action.

      • Zoe says:

        11 Oct11 October 07:56

        Thanks, I will save and submit everything – EasyJet paid everything we asked for after the ash cloud extended an Easter break. I managed to swap him onto the same route on Friday (no cost). Most of the rest of the group struggled to find Ryanair alternatives and have spent hundreds on inconvenient routes with other airlines, I doubt they managed to okay this with Ryanair first as their chat was incredibly hard to access so I think they are stuck with a £40 refund and no ‘reasonable expenses’ claim. I have limited sympathy as finishing their round of golf had a higher priority than sorting their flights…

• the real harry1 says:

  11 Oct11 October 07:15

  O/T http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/10/10/nisa-recommends-143m-co-op-takeover-months-protracted-talks/

  [Convenience chain Nisa has recommended its 1,190 shopkeeper members agree to a £143m takeover from The Co-operative Group]

  Could be of Amex/ PayPoint interest if it goes ahead – invariably, acquiring businesses switch the retail outlets they have acquired over to their own till system, though with Co-Op this is slightly complicated by the franchisee option which presumably gives more autonomy to the owner. Not even sure if Nisa generally uses PayPoint money handling systems already.

  Bit fed up personally because last year Co-Op sold off 298 stores to McColls and this will limit my Shop Small outings, link next post if interested. McColls stopped taking Amex.

  • Genghis says:

    11 Oct11 October 07:19

    Now that would be “heartbreaking”

    • Genghis says:

      11 Oct11 October 07:34

      In this hobby, the only constant is change

      • Optimus Prime says:

        11 Oct11 October 08:22

        Rob should add this quote next to the blog title!

  • the real harry1 says:

    11 Oct11 October 07:20

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38376902
    Co-op’s sale of 298 of its food stores to convenience chain McColl’s has been approved by the competition regulator.

    • mark2 says:

      11 Oct11 October 07:45

      Surely the Coop does not qualify for ShopSmall?
      Fortunately most of the Coop stores that I use for PayPoint are quite large.

      • the real harry1 says:

        11 Oct11 October 07:52

        au contraire 🙂

        the last couple of years that’s where I’ve been buying my half-price stamps/ failing that, beer – they got taken off the SS map last year but the £5 credits still kept on getting given back on statement

      • Axel says:

        11 Oct11 October 08:30

        There’s changes afoot at Amex Shop Small. Amex are bringing in their own map as there were lots of problems with the third party map they were previously using.

        I asked if my business would be listed this year and Amex were positive more retailers etc would be on the list.

      • the real harry1 says:

        11 Oct11 October 12:40

        actually it was Spar not Co-Op, so I should be OK

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